How the cougar will change
The cougar is and animal that lives in the mountains and is a very good predator. It hunts elk, deer, and small rodents, while taking down such big animals, it only eats twenty pounds of meat every day. To stick to this diet, it hunts every nine to twelve days. Cougars are most active from dusk until dawn, so some might say that that they are nocturnal. As to this, they hunt at night.
With deer and elk becoming more and more scarce, the cougar may need to
adapt to eating less food. To adapt to less food, they could slowly shrink their stomach so they need less food to be full. So twenty pounds of meat can be reduced down to eighteen or
fifteen pounds of meat, who knows, maybe less. Cougars can also evolve their
digestive track so no nutrient is wasted. They could possibly make twenty pounds
of meat last for more than a day.
While above seems to be the better option, they can change in other ways too.
They need to eat and maybe change to eat plants and meat. Their back teeth could
grow flatter and be able to grind plant matter. The stomach acid may change to
accept this new diet, and take a larger amount to fill it up in plants than
meat. This beautiful animal could also change to eat fish and or under water
pants. I predict that the cougar may grow more muscle on its tail so it could be
used for swimming balance or for swimming alone.
All of our predictions are natural because they needed food that was becoming scarce. The adaptations could also be human induced because of hunting and deforestation. If they change, they all need to do this to servive and thrive in thier enviorment.
The cougar is and animal that lives in the mountains and is a very good predator. It hunts elk, deer, and small rodents, while taking down such big animals, it only eats twenty pounds of meat every day. To stick to this diet, it hunts every nine to twelve days. Cougars are most active from dusk until dawn, so some might say that that they are nocturnal. As to this, they hunt at night.
With deer and elk becoming more and more scarce, the cougar may need to
adapt to eating less food. To adapt to less food, they could slowly shrink their stomach so they need less food to be full. So twenty pounds of meat can be reduced down to eighteen or
fifteen pounds of meat, who knows, maybe less. Cougars can also evolve their
digestive track so no nutrient is wasted. They could possibly make twenty pounds
of meat last for more than a day.
While above seems to be the better option, they can change in other ways too.
They need to eat and maybe change to eat plants and meat. Their back teeth could
grow flatter and be able to grind plant matter. The stomach acid may change to
accept this new diet, and take a larger amount to fill it up in plants than
meat. This beautiful animal could also change to eat fish and or under water
pants. I predict that the cougar may grow more muscle on its tail so it could be
used for swimming balance or for swimming alone.
All of our predictions are natural because they needed food that was becoming scarce. The adaptations could also be human induced because of hunting and deforestation. If they change, they all need to do this to servive and thrive in thier enviorment.
Definitions
Adaptation is to change a certain trait in order to survive in a
changed environment. While the trait changes the organism , they still need thousands, even millions of years to change. This is also known as evolving when the process is done. |
speciation is to come from the same common
ancestor but to evolve and make another spesies that can preduce a living ofspring. the three steps to speciation are division, adaption and creation a new spiecies |
Works cited
"Animal
Fact Guide." Animal Fact Guide. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Feb. 2014.
"COUGAR:
THE AMERICAN LION." Mountain Lion Foundation. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Feb.
2014.
"Chapter 7." Life Science. . Holt Science Technology . N.p.: n.p., n.d. 164-92. Print.